Trapped
by alecsangryface
Summary: "Was that- Did you-" Jace gaped, a smile slowly overtaking his face, "Did you just make a joke? or the one where they get trapped in a closet Part 2 of the MisAdventures of Alec and Jace
**A/N: These two will continue to be idiots. Let me know if there's anything you would like to see in this series.**

Alec, to anyone that barely knew him - which was unsurprisingly most people, seemed to be unimpressed by Jace's return to the Institute. To those who knew him, he was thrumming with excitement, to have his parabatai back by his side and relatively unharmed was nothing short of a miracle. He had to restrain himself from reaching out to touch Jace, just to make sure he was real all the time. Jace appeared to understand though because he walked close enough to him that their shoulders would occasionally brush and he demanded that Alec spend more time training with him. He was just as excited to be back with his other half.

They were wandering through the Institute aimlessly, there wasn't much they could do besides traipse between rooms because everyone else was busy with some pet project of theirs. The two of them had already trained together for a few hours, and it was barely midday, they threw knives, spared with bow staffs, and did hand-to-hand rough enough that they were both left feeling a bit sore - even more so since parabatai feel each other's pain, so not only did they feel the pain of punching someone but also the pain of receiving a punch in the same move.

"So I guess we're in a good place? I don't know, but I want us to be you know?" Alec was filling Jace in on what he missed while he was with Valentine as they walked, mostly filling him in on what had happened between him and Magnus, not because he thought it was particularly interesting but because Jace asked. He needed to know how his parabatai was feeling, hoping that he was feeling better in himself, and oh how he had wanted to track Camille down when he found out what she did.

"He said he enjoyed himself right?" Alec nodded, "So ask him out again, stupid! I swear if I wasn't here to help you along, you would never make any moves"

Alec huffed "That's not true. I got the first date by myself"

"Well whatever, I'm taking credit for the display at the wedding" Jace threw his head back to laugh, clutching at Alec's arm as Alec spluttered indignantly.

They turned the corner and Jace froze. Clary was stood at the end of the corridor in what seemed to be a heated debate with her mother. Jace had done well to avoid Clary, and her mother in turn, at all costs in his three days of being returned.

Alec had become fonder of Clary than he had expected during Jace's absence. He still wasn't close to liking her, she was too reckless for him to tolerate her more than he did at that time and it was too harsh a reminder of what Jace was like, but she understood better than anyone what he was going through with Jace being gone so they were taking tentative steps towards friendship, "Jace. Maybe you should talk-"

The rest of his words were knocked out of him as he was forcibly pushed, by Jace, through a door off to their right and into darkness as the door was slammed behind them. He felt his shoulder connect roughly with a wall and heard the sound of metal snapping.

"What the fuck, Jace?" He wrenched his arm away from Jace so he could rub over the place of impact in an attempt to sooth the feeling a little bit.

"I panicked" Jace muttered. He groped at the wall the door was on trying to find the light switch. They didn't need light to know that they were in a room that was much too small to fit the both of them comfortably, it probably couldn't even fit one of them comfortably. He found the light switch, flicked it on and the single swinging light bulb above their head flickered to life and continued to flicker for a few seconds before it settled into a dim buzz.

"This is brilliant" Alec moaned. They were stood in what appeared to be an old file storage closet. Stacks of boxes, dating from 1999 to 2008 lined both walls at their sides so that neither of them could reach out more than half their arm span to their sides. They were uncomfortably close together, almost stood on each other's toes. The only small miracle would be that the ceiling was much higher than both of them.

"Get us out"

"I can't" Jace was refusing to make eye contact. Instead his eyes flickered restlessly between boxes, trying to find something interesting enough to hold his gaze.

"What do you mean you can't?" Alec's voice, as it often did in these situations, had an undercurrent of anger. Jace sighed knowing there was literally no was out of it. He uncurled his left hand, In it sat a door knob. A door knob that should have been attached to the door so it could actually be used.

"Use your stele" Alec growled. He was trying to think pragmatically enough to get them out of the mess but also so he didn't throttle Jace.

Jace shook his head, "I never take it to training. Have you got your phone?"

Alec was beginning to look murderous and it wouldn't have bothered Jace usually, but they were trapped in an enclosed space so it was much more likely that Alec could catch him to kill him. He shook his head, "you know I never take it to training"

Alec had made that mistake once before. He had it in a pocket in his jacket that he left on a bench far enough out the way that it shouldn't have caused a problem. But Jace had gotten a little too trigger happy with his bow staff during his spar with Alec and wrenched Alec's so hard out of his hand that it sailed across the room and the end had smashed directly into the screen. Jace maintained that he had done Alec a favour because his phone was on its last legs anyway, Alec maintained that that wasn't the point. Since then the unofficial rule was no phones when the two of them were sparing. Jace's phone had been thrown into a river by Valentine when he was with him, and only being back for three days they hadn't had time get a new one.

"I could kick it?" Jace offered. He had taught himself the perfect spot to kick a door open one weekend because he thought it looked cool, and sometimes it was a lot quicker to kick a door than to mess about with his stele.

"Yes because there is definitely enough room for you to kick your leg out, especially with me standing here" Alec said sarcastically. He leant his back against the grey stone brick wall behind him. There was a slight breeze that caressed his back from the window at the top of the wall, there was really no reason for it to be there no one was tall enough to see through it.

"Alright no need to be rude" Jace tried to laugh in the hopes that Alec would see the funny side of things. He didn't. Jace huffed and tossed the door knob in a box labelled 'May, 2007', they wouldn't be needing it anyway, "what's got you so worked up anyway"

"Well excuse me if I don't want to be trapped in a closet when I've just spent twenty years getting out of one" Alec let his head fall back to meet the wall. The breeze from the window washed over his forehead, it was starting to get too hot in there and the air was getting too heavy.

"Was that- Did you-" Jace gaped, a smile slowly overtaking his face, "Did you just make a joke?"

Alec closed his eyes and snorted. Jace took that as his cue that it was okay to laugh. They both laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation because, as they had realised more than once over the years, it was better to laugh than to fight. Of course that didn't stop them both being a little bit angry at the other when they got into said ridiculous situations, but their bond was too total to ever stay mad at the other.

"So any ideas?" Alec said as they both sobered up.

"None so far" Jace muttered running his fingers over some of the boxes. He was starting to get restless with nothing to fiddle with.

"Okay" Alec huffed. He watched Jace finger a ripped piece of cardboard for a long minute before he spoke again.

"Are we going to talk about Clary?"

"Nope" Jace popped the p and didn't look at Alec.

Alec sighed, "Wrong answer. I'm your parabatai, you know you can tell me anything"

Jace huffed and muttered something that Alec couldn't really hear but sounded suspiciously like 'pulling the parabatai card because he knows I can't say no to that, the stupid beautiful dick head'. Alec smirked and raised an eyebrow.

"Fine" Jace slumped against the door, hating more than ever that he had panicked enough to get them into this mess, "It's stupid though"

"You say that like half the shit that comes out your mouth isn't stupid" Alec deadpanned.

Jace snorted "I just don't know what to do. I know I should talk to Jocelyn, believe me I know, but there's something telling me that I will not be happy with the result"

Alec watched sadly as his parabatai knocked the back of his head against the door a couple of times. They couldn't feel each other's emotional pain, but Alec had a pretty good idea of just how bad Jace was right then.

"You should talk to someone though, for closure. What about Luke?" Alec didn't rationally think Jace talking to Luke would do much good either, but his brother needed a solution and he would be dammed if he didn't try to help.

"I'm talking to you, that's enough for now" Jace replied quietly as if it was an after thought, his eyes had finally come to rest at the window. They narrowed as he thought. Alec watched him, knowing that Jace was gearing up for a 'bright' idea.

"Let's climb out the window" Jace said decisively. Alec stared in disbelief.

"You want us to climb out the window?" Jace nodded. Alec waited for a few seconds then shrugged, "Alright. It's not like we're having any other ideas. C'mon I'll give you a boost"

"Hold up why do I have to go first" Jace replied hurt.

"You're shorter and therefore less likely to be able to reach when I offer you a hand up. So you first" Jace pulled a face, but he couldn't argue with Alec's logic - sometimes he hated how logical Alec was, he could barely ever make up a good enough argument - so he instead settled for putting a foot into Alec's outstretched hands. He placed his hands on Alec's shoulders and nodded, then pushed up with his foot on Alec's boost and managed to grab onto the ledge

"You good?" Alec had moved to hold onto the top of Jace's thighs, where he could support him better than if he was holding his calves.

"Oh now I know why you wanted me to go first"

"What?"

"You wanted an excuse to look at my fantastic ass" Jace smirked as he tried wrenching the window clasp open, years of it being unused meant the metal had rusted over.

"Your ass is not that great" Alec scoffed

"It is that great" Jace replied. He had managed to open the clasp half way and his arms were staring to strain from where they were holding him up.

"Magnus' is better"

"Now I know you're lying to me" Jace laughed.

"I'm not in the business of lying" Alec replied simply. Jace grumbled slightly but he had managed to open the lock so he wasn't going to bait Alec anymore.

"Okay put me down a minute" Jace said.

Alec dropped him unceremoniously and if it weren't for Jace's Shadowhunter training he would not have stuck the landing as well as he did. Jace rubbed his upper arms for a couple of seconds then motioned for Alec to give him a boost again.

This time it was just as smooth but Jace got a better hold on the ledge and could shuffle closer slightly. Alec put his hands under Jace's feet so he had a bit more leverage as he was crawling up.

Outside, Jace's found himself shuffling in grass. The closet must have been on one of the levels of the Institute underground so the window really was at the only place it would matter.

"Can you hear me Alec?" Jace shouted. He heard a faint 'yeah' from behind him, the wind was blowing enough for there to be some interference.

Jace nodded and shuffled forwards again, only to catch on something to force him to stop. He tried again. No luck.

"Hey Alec?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm stuck" Jace winced.

"What the fuck? You're joking!" Alec didn't sound happy at all. He sounded even madder than he did when they got stuck in the closet originally.

"You know this is great! Not only did you get us trapped in a fucking closet but you also managed to fuck up our only way out!"

Jace winced. He could imagine the look on Alec's face, it was a looking he had been trying to avoid for quite some time and he thought he had been doing well. There was also the added bonus of something uncomfortably digging into his hip.

"Look you think I want this? I'm the one that's hanging out a window!" Jace turned as best he could to direct his voice to Alec, the last thing he needed right now was for someone to see him stuck in a window and shouting to no one.

"Well isn't this fun" Jace froze as he heard the voice come from above him. He slowly turned to face it, praying it would just be a figment of his imagination.

"What are you doing down there, Jace?" Isabelle had her arms folded across her chest and was fighting back what seemed to be a lot of laugher.

"Oh you know, just hanging out" Jace kicked out with his leg behind him when he heard Alec's groan. He hoped Izzy hadn't heard him. She did.

"Alec, what are you two doing?" She crouched slightly so she could try to see past Jace, there wasn't much to see apart from the flickering light bulb.

"Jace got us trapped in a closet because he's too chicken shit to talk to Clary" Alec happily supplied.

"I am not scared!"

"We know you are Jace" Izzy patted his head, smirking because he couldn't get away from the action, "I suppose I better get you out of here"

"It would be appreciated" Jace mumbled.

"Do you think you could crawl back in?"

Jace experimentally shifted back a touch, he moved with an ease that didn't come moving the other way. He nodded.

"Okay which closet?" Izzy stood back up and smoothed her dress down as if she didn't look picture perfect anyway.

"It's a couple corridors over from the training room and has all the 1999 to 2008 boxes in it" Jace told her. She nodded and walked away, he slipped back into the room and smiled sheepishly at Alec as he rubbed at his sore hip.

"At least we're getting out"

"Yep and when we do you're talking to Clary" Alec held up a hand when Jace went to argue with him, "No buts, you're talking to her"

Jace was saved from replying when the door swung open to reveal Izzy's smirking face.

"Alec do you not think you've spent enough time in closets?"

"Already made that joke and it was all his fault" he jabbed a finger at Jace as he passed her. He looked both ways down the corridor, hoping to see Clary either way. He was hoping to see Clary, what was the world coming to.

"I apologised!" Jace squawked as he came to stand next to him. Alec hummed as he always did in these conversations.

"Izzy, do you know where Clary is? Jace would like to talk to her" Alec said, turning back to his sister.

Izzy snorted but beckoned for them to follow her. Jace, to his credit, only tried to bolt once, for the most part he trudged along beside Alec quietly complaining about Lightwoods and their stupid need for harmony. Alec snorted and pushed him slightly. Jace sighed, at least with whatever happened with Clary he would still have his proper brother and sister to fall back on.


End file.
